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Contradictions: A Freewrite
Shards of glass atop the brick boundary–the British are coming, the British have come–do they keep them out or keep them in//a mother breast feeds her child sitting on the side of the overcrowded, dusty highway//eyes stare at us//colors of the rainbow expand beyond measure in the flow of fabric from woman to woman//the pungent…
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Swimming the Ganges
This video shows the power of the Ganges’ current near Haridwar. Swimming the Ganges
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Tourists
Lots of tourists in this video, none western, visiting the Qutb Minar. Tourists at Qutb Minar
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No Glass Here
This video covers a few minutes of our walk from our bus to the hotel in Haridwar, through the market that borders the River Ganges. Click on the title below left to open the video in a separate window. Through the bazaar
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Performing Aarti in Haridwar
In Haridwar, a family together performs Aarti to Mother Ganga by moving the leaf boat of flowers and fire in circles and then placing it in the water. (Click on title below left to open a brief video in a separate window.) Performing Aarti
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Beggars in Delhi
The baby was pressed up against the window glass of the car with his tiny brown face flattened against the surface maybe three inches from my eyes on the other side. He was wearing only a torn strip of a shirt at the top of his chest. On his bare torso below were tightly wrapped…
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Mrs. Sukhwar on the Train
Mrs. Sukhwar, on the train from Delhi to Haridwar, was pleased that she had recently married her daughter, in her 20s, who is now living in Australia with her husband. Mrs. Sukhwar found the husband through an ad in the newspaper. Later, I looked through the Hindustan Times (“the HT,” as Mrs. Sukhwar refers to…
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Holy Baths
This video (“In Devprayag”), placed here for continuity in the blog but completed well after our return to the U.S., adds illustration to Mark Wilson’s fine description below of our visit to the beginning of the Ganges in Devprayag. His text explains what the video shows: the three rivers, the suspension bridge, the mountains. The…
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Geological Holy Land
Our trip to Devprayag, where the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda Rivers combine to produce the Ganges, began in Haridwar on the bank of the Ganges. This was the day that I could see India through the disciplinary eyes of a geologist. The rocks and landscapes we saw on our northward journey transcended the extraordinary human culture…
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Discovery of India
I sat next to Mrs. Sukhwar on the train from New Delhi to Haridwar, and we spoke together in English. She has lived in Delhi for 50 years, though she was born in Lucknow, and she was on her way to Haridwar for the same reason we were: to join the Aarti ceremony in honor…
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Cultural Similarities
What a surprise!! The Dean of Students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) receives complaints from students. The culture of colleges and universities are remarkably similar in the range of issues and problems that need to be addressed from budget constraints, course planning, and student motivation. What actually surprised me was the degree to…
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Immersion in Ritual
We’ve been travelling now without internet access. This video is from a couple of days ago in Haridwar. Our one evening in Haridwar was the most dramatic, bustling, exciting, claustrophobic, sharing, participatory of our experiences to date. We walked from our hotel through narrow, vendor lined streets to the temple site on the banks of…